This is one perfect little palm fringed beach right in the heart of Puerto Escondido and just a A$3 cab ride from La Punta Beach (where we’re living) – actually, everywhere in PE is A$3.

Accessed by 157 steps, Carrizalillo is a sheltered cove fringed with palapa beach bars where two day beds and an umbrella costs A$14 for the day. Everything is (too easily) to hand with margaritas and delicious tacos cheap and plentiful. Today was too darn hot, at least 37 degrees with the ocean feeling like a warm bath.

Carrizalillo is where you learn to surf around here, with a beginner’s lesson lasting a couple of hours and costing around A$40 – it’s not the most graceful of entrees into this sport and leaves most punters flat-faced in the water but after an hour or so, you can see some of them almost standing with a defiant grin on their chops and readying themselves for the barrel surf of Zicatela – which let me tell you, is not for the faint-hearted.

One of the nicest aspects of this beach and indeed of most of the popular destinations we’ve been to in Mexico, is how these places are for locals – at Carrizalillo for instance, families in their droves arrive just after mid-day and plonk themselves down for a good old picnic – sporting tiny chihuahuas in handbags, chubby kids with board-shorts at half-mast and hapless younger brothers being buried in sand, just as the tide turns.

Away from the beach though, Puerto Escondido ‘centro’ is not the most attractive of places, with hot choked streets, tatty stores and sprawling produce markets, it’s a place to come once to check out, stock up and make a hasty exit back to the pool, just in time for a storm to barrel in from nowhere and cool things down.

It was always going to be a struggle to work in this environment, but we’re determined to knuckle down and achieve our goals of writing each and every day and, for me personally, keeping my business interests alive and active. So, as lovely as Carrizalillo is, we might resist the urge to go every day, get on with the things that matter and perhaps, treat ourselves with a visit every now and again. Sounds like a plan.